
Mailänderli
Mailänderli are the best known Christmas biscuits in Switzerland, they are based on butter, flour and sugar. The shortcrust pastry is cut out with different shapes and brushed with egg yolk before baking. It also usually contains lemon zest, which gives it a subtle freshness. The recipe first appeared in the 18th century and was already popular then.
Although it may not seem like it, it is quite easy to veganise Mailänderli. The important thing is to use a neutral vegetable fat. Vegan butter, margarine or coconut fat are suitable for this. Personally, I replace butter with coconut fat. That is a matter of taste. I use coconut fat because it is the least processed. Olive oil or other vegetable oils are rather unsuitable for baking because they have a strong flavour of their own or cannot be heated to such a high temperature because they are extra virgin.

To give the biscuits a similar glaze, I used a sugar glaze with a pinch of turmeric, but only after baking. The lemon juice in the glaze, enhances the overall lemon flavour of the biscuit.
White flour can be replaced well with smoked flour. There is almost no difference in colour. If you want to avoid gluten, you can easily replace the white flour with a gluten-free flour mix; from the supermarket or homemade. I have not noticed any differences in baking.
Vegan baking is usually easier as you only differentiate between dry and wet ingredients. A vegan biscuit dough is therefore much quicker to make.
When baking biscuits, I have found that they don’t really get crispy on silicone mats. The silicone mat retains moisture, especially on the underside. This makes the biscuits rubbery and tough. Therefore, in this case, you should use baking paper or another alternative that eliminates this disadvantage, so that the biscuits become nice and crispy.

Mailänderli
Equipment
- Cookie cutters
Ingredients
- 200 g smoked flour (type 1050), or gluten-free flour mix
- 1 tbsp psyllium husks
- 60 g sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- ½ lemon, zest
- 125 g fat, e.g. coconut fat
- 2-4 tbsp. water
Icing
- 50 g icing sugar
- 4 tsp lemon juice
- ¼ tsp turmeric
Instructions
- Mix all the dry ingredients together. Then add the wet ingredients and knead into a dough. Make sure that the fat mixes well with the flour and a homogeneous mass is formed.
- Refrigerate for a short time. Not too long, otherwise the dough will be too hard and difficult to roll out.
- Roll out the dough on flour (5mm), cut out with cutters and place on a prepared baking tray.
- Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for approx. 10 minutes at 180 °C convection oven.
Glaze
- Mix the ingredients for the glaze together and brush onto the already baked and cooled Mailänderli.
Notes
Nutrition
